by Paula Graves
The major was as pale as milk, his lips turning a scary-looking gray. The odd sucking sound he made when he breathed made Megan’s heart tumble. “He looks terrible,” she murmured to Evan, reaching down to Gantry’s throat to check his carotid pulse. It was fast and thready.
“I think he was right about puncturing his lung,” Evan replied, scanning the area around them for an impending ambush.
“Then we have to get him out of here.” She looked up at Evan. “Alive. He said he’d testify against Barton Reid.”
“I guess we’d better put out an SOS call to your cousins, then, because they’ve got us pretty well pinned down.”
“The road—” Gantry’s voice was a guttural groan.
“What about the road?” Evan asked.
“There’s—a road—down the mountain. Two or three miles.”
Megan peered through the dense woods below, looking for any sign of a road. She thought she saw a flicker of movement, a spot of color that might have been a vehicle passing along a mostly hidden road. “I don’t know if we can drag him down there ourselves without hurting him more—” Megan’s cell phone vibrated. She reached into her jeans pocket and checked it. “Text from Luke—the SSU operatives seem to be retreating.”
“You think they believe Gantry’s dead?”
She looked at the hole in Gantry’s shirt. Straight to the heart. “If he weren’t wearing body armor, he would be dead.”
If Vince had been wearing body armor, would he have survived the sniper shot that took him down?
Why hadn’t he been wearing armor?
She looked up at Evan. “I can’t believe I never asked anyone this question before. Why wasn’t Vince wearing body armor on patrol?”
He sighed. “It was a hundred degrees in the shade, and we hadn’t had any combat action in almost two weeks. Things had calmed down in our sector. Nobody was expecting sniper fire.”
“I told them they didn’t have to,” Gantry said.
Megan’s chest hurt. She grabbed the front of Gantry’s shirt, making him grunt in pain. “Did you know someone was going to shoot him?”
“Megan—” Evan caught her arms and pulled her away from Gantry. “You’re going to hurt him worse.”
Rage churned in her belly, waves of hot nausea threatening to spill over. She fought for control, knowing deep down that she had to stay focused or they’d all be killed.
“Did you know?” she asked Gantry again, keeping her tone low and calm. Evan’s grip on her arms loosened.
“I didn’t know. Not until—after.” Gantry groped for her hand. Finding it, he squeezed weakly. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let it happen.”
She pulled her hand away and turned to Evan. “Can you get to the road?”
He nodded, watching her carefully. “He can testify against Reid if he lives.”
She knew a warning when she heard one. Apparently, he thought if he left her alone with Gantry, she just might do the man in. Hell, maybe she would. Not on purpose, but right now, anger chafed inside her like a chained tiger. She had to get it under control. Their lives might depend on it.
“He’ll be alive when you get back with help,” she promised.
Evan touched her cheek, his palm rough and warm. “Are you a good shot?” he asked, edging closer to her until she thought he was about to kiss her.
“Pretty good.”
“You may have to give me cover fire, so try not to use up your ammo.” He pressed his lips to her brow. “Shoot for the throat if it comes to that—they’re wearing body armor, too.”
Then he was off, running a crooked pattern down the mountainside toward the road below.
Megan watched the ridge for any sign of gunmen, but there was nothing. She pulled out her cell phone to let her cousins know where they could find Evan and discovered another text from Luke. She hadn’t even noticed the vibration in the chaos. “All vehicles gone from woods except Shane’s truck. Tires flat.”
A preventive measure to keep Evan from doubling back and escaping? Or had it been a petty final salute before they bugged out? Megan wasn’t sure it mattered.
She texted back the information about Evan and requested a 911 call to authorities, as well—Major Gantry was injured. She pocketed the phone again and looked at Gantry. He wasn’t any better, but he didn’t look that much worse, either.
He was gazing back at her with solemn gray eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“For what? Getting my husband killed? Or getting caught?”
“I covered it up. I didn’t cause it.” His breathing was a little better, she noticed—maybe he didn’t have a collapsed lung after all. But then he gave a long, rattling wheeze with his next breath and she went back to being afraid he was going to die before help arrived. She might have only a little time to get the answers she needed.
“Why did you cover it up? Were you involved in the SSU scandal? Were you working with Barton Reid?”
“Not with him—” Gantry’s wheeze intensified. “He had something on my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“We were having trouble with finances. While I was gone, she took money. From her company.”
Embezzlement. “And Barton Reid knew about it?”
“He knows everything about everyone.” He tried a shallow cough and grimaced with agony. “Makes it a point.”
“He blackmailed you into covering up Vince’s death?”
Gantry nodded. “She’d put the money back—nobody knew except us and the junior partner of the firm. But somehow, Reid found out. He threatened to tell the senior partner. She’d lose her job, probably go to jail—” His anguished expression tugged at her heart. “My kids are four and seven. I’m gone all the time—they barely know me—”
“All you had to do was go along with the official story about Vince’s death?”
“And not tell anyone I saw Barton Reid with Malik Tahrim.”
“He’s a terrorist?”
“Al Adar connected—bad news.”
“You’ll testify to all of this?”
Gantry nodded again. “I was wrong to sit on it. My marriage is crumbling because of the pressure. My wife and I can’t even look at each other—”
“The truth will set you free,” she murmured.
“Or get you killed.”
The wry tone of the masculine voice behind her sent a shiver down her spine as she whirled to face the camouflage-clad man standing behind her, his rifle pointed at her chest.
* * *
HALFWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, Evan’s cell phone buzzed. He took cover behind a tree and checked the phone. There was a text message from Jesse Cooper. He read the message twice to be sure he was seeing what he thought.
His blood ran cold.
He peered up the mountain toward the boulders where he’d left Megan and Elmore Gantry and spotted a man in camouflage creeping up the hill. Even from this distance, Evan should have been able to hear him moving through the underbrush, but the man in camouflage walked with the practiced stealth of a hunter.
He was lean, tall, but not imposing. Young—mid-twenties, maybe. Like most of the other SSU agents, trained by former military instructors at MacLear, this man had the poise and bearing of a soldier.
Remembering the message he’d just received from Jesse Cooper, Evan knew exactly who the man in camouflage had to be. And he was heading straight toward the boulders where Megan and Gantry were hunkered down.
There was no time to lose. The decision was made—the woman he loved was up there, vulnerable, with no idea that death was heading her way.
No idea that death wore the face of someone she thought she could trust.
Sliding his P32 from his ankle holster, he headed up the mountain after the stalker.
* * *
IT TOOK A FEW SECONDS for Megan to look away from the barrel of the M6 rifle long enough to meet the intruder’s clear gray eyes, seconds that could have meant the end of her life if he’d wanted to shoot her.
But he didn’t. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“You’re here to kill him?”
“What do you care? He lied to you for years.” With a little flick of the gun barrel, he indicated he wanted her out of his way. She realized her body was blocking his shot at Gantry, who lay wedged behind her against the rocks.
“And you’re trying to keep the cover-up going,” she retorted, wondering if she could move fast enough to push the barrel up and away before he could get a shot off.
Probably not, she decided.
“You think there aren’t people in every government in every country making messy decisions?”
“And that makes it okay?”
“I’m sayin’ they’re all alike. You just have to figure out how you can get your piece of it.”
A hint of a Southern drawl slipped out, and she realized she knew his voice. It took a second to place it, but when it did, her gut tightened painfully. “You son of a bitch.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Yes, I know who you are,” she growled. “Shane Mason.”
With a sigh, he pulled down the green balaclava covering the bottom half of his face. “It was just a job.”
“You were messing with my cousin, who happens to have had enough crap to deal with in her life— Wait! You started dating her two months ago! Were you an SSU agent the whole time?”
“We’re not the SSU,” he protested, looking angry. “We don’t belong to anyone but ourselves.”
“Looks like you belong to Barton Reid to me,” she said. “Bought and paid for.”
A pained look creased his face, as if her words had hit the mark. “Please move out of my way. I’m not here to hurt you. I never was.”
“No, you’re here to shoot an injured man in cold blood.”
“He betrayed us.”
“He betrayed Barton Reid,” she shot back. “And Barton Reid betrayed his country.”
“The country betrayed him—betrayed us—a long time ago.”
Megan stared at him, feeling as if the world had just upended beneath her feet. She’d known Shane Mason for two months—casually, but they’d run into each other more than once because of her cousin Cissy—and not once had he ever seemed remotely political. Yet the young man standing before her glowed with the fervor of a true believer.
“Is Shane Mason even your name?”
His only answer was to point the barrel of the M16 at her chest again. “I will shoot through you if I have to.”
A sudden flicker of movement in the woods behind Mason caught her eye. She saw a flash of green-and-gray plaid, and her heart skipped a beat.
Evan had come back.
“I mean it, Megan. Move out of the way.”
She stood her ground, forcing her gaze up to meet his. “You were in the army.” She felt a flutter of pain in the center of her chest. “You told Cissy you’d been in Afghanistan, but that’s not where you were, was it? You were in Kaziristan.”
“Merriwether,” Gantry murmured behind her. “His real name is Scott—Merriwether.”
“Merriwether?” Chill bumps rose up Megan’s arms. “I guess you didn’t die in a car crash after all, huh? What did you do, grab some poor guy off the street, liquor him up and put him behind the wheel of your car? How’d you manage the DNA match?”
He smiled. “Nobody died. It was a cover story all along.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The SSU has that kind of clout?”
“I told you, we’re not the SSU.”
“Then who are you?”
“Patriots.”
“I don’t think that means what you think it does.”
“I suppose you think patriotism means a bunch of pampered middle-class idiots marching around talking about the founding fathers and balanced budgets and supporting the troops?” Mason—Merriwether, she corrected mentally—shook his head. “They send the troops out to protect their gold and their oil—they don’t care about the troops.”
“And Barton Reid does?”
Merriwether’s smile made her gut clench. “Reid is just the tip of the iceberg.”
* * *
SO FAR, SCOTT MERRIWETHER hadn’t fired his rifle, despite how bloody long it had taken Evan to sneak back up the hill behind him. He was talking to Megan, his voice a low rumble that Evan couldn’t quite discern from his position thirty yards away. He needed to be a lot closer if he wanted to get a decent shot. His Kel-Tec P32 had excellent accuracy, but nobody was a good shot with a pistol at thirty yards.
There was little cover if he wanted to go straight at the rifleman. He’d have to circle behind, which would eat up extra time. Looking at the rifle barrel pointed right at Megan’s chest, he didn’t know if he had extra time.
His heart was still racing like a hunted rabbit, as it had been ever since he’d read Jesse Cooper’s text message.
“Merriwether isn’t dead. Merriwether is Shane Mason.”
No wonder the SSU had found them. They’d probably been tracking him and Megan through Merriwether’s truck from the beginning.
Evan edged left, keeping low, hiding behind the cover of rocks and bushes. He’d lucked out in his choice of clothes for the day, a dark green and gray plaid shirt over a charcoal gray T-shirt that offered him more camouflage than he might have otherwise hoped for. He scooted in a looping circle until he was positioned about ten yards behind the man with the rifle.
From there, he saw the unmistakable outline of a bullet-resistant vest beneath the man’s camo-patterned clothing. Muttering a low curse, he lifted his pistol sights to the back of the gunman’s unprotected neck.
“Reid was always working for someone else,” Merriwether said. “We all are.”
“Someone in the government?” Megan asked.
“You have to work from inside out to create real change.”
“What’s your vision of America after the change?” Megan’s voice was tight with tension, but Evan had to give her credit for remaining calm and focused, trying to draw Merriwether out and keep him talking.
If he weren’t already completely mad about her, he’d have fallen a little in love with her just for that grace under fire.
“No more pretending we’re saints, to begin with,” Merriwether answered. “No more propping up dictators just because they’ll happily take our money for their oil.”
“Did you shoot Vince?”
Merriwether didn’t answer Megan’s low question.
She took a step closer to him, until her chest was inches from the M16’s deadly barrel. Evan’s breath caught in his throat, trapped by terror as the former soldier’s finger twitched on the trigger.
“Did you kill my husband?” Her eyes blazed with fury.
Merriwether dropped the barrel of the M16, just a little.
“Why?” Megan’s voice held so much hurt, it made Evan’s heart ache for her. “Just because he saw Barton Reid with a terrorist? Just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he had to die?”
Merriwether’s back straightened as she took another step forward. He whipped the barrel of the rifle up again, and Evan knew, down to his marrow, that Merriwether was about to fire.
But as he raised the Kel-Tec to fire, the crack of a gunshot split the air.
Chapter Eighteen
A half dozen things seemed to happen all at once within the next few seconds of Megan’s life. A flash of movement in the woods. The glint of sunlight on the M16 barrel as Merriwether swung it toward her. The leap of the Ruger in her hand as she squeezed the trigger. The deafening crack of gunfire.
She flung herself backward against the boulders as the barrel of the M16 continued an upward arc, even as Merriwether started to fall. With its strange, blatting noise, the sound-suppressed M16 sprayed bullets into the woods behind her, falling silent as Merriwether finally hit the ground.
She lay still, afraid to move. Afraid she’d sit up to find herself mortally wounded by a stray bullet. Afraid the flash of movement in the woods hadn’t been
Evan but one of Merriwether’s accomplices, come to clean up the mess they’d left behind.
She felt something hot and wet move across her hand. Opening her eyes, she saw that Merriwether had fallen only a couple of feet away from her, blood from his ruined throat pouring into the ground as his heart pumped a few last, sporadic beats before he died.
She pulled her hand away from the blood and closed her eyes again, nausea rising in her throat.
“Megan?” Evan’s voice. Faint. Scared.
She forced her eyes open and met his anguished gaze. “I’m okay,” she said aloud, although she wasn’t. She felt as sick as she’d ever remembered being, now that the adrenaline rush of the last few minutes was fading.
He knelt beside her, touching her face, but she pushed him away, scrambling on hands and knees a few feet away so she could empty her stomach without contaminating the crime scene.
She groaned as the dry heaves hit her, shuddering as Evan’s hand smoothed over her back, comforting and humiliating at the same time. “I’m sorry,” she gasped.
He pulled her hair away from her face. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, swallowing hard to fight the heaves. “Why’d you come back?”
“Jesse sent me a text—told me Merriwether was Shane Mason,” Evan murmured.
She rubbed her aching eyes. “I guess he didn’t die in a crash, after all.”
“How did he fake his death? Did he say?”
“He said someone handled it. I’m not sure what that means,” she admitted. She looked over at Merriwether’s body. “Oh my God, what are we going to tell Cissy?”
The phone in her pocket vibrated. She sat back on her heels and checked the message. “J.D.’s still looking for you. You never showed up.” She looked up at him, the fire in his gaze catching her off guard. “Evan?”
He reached out to touch her face, his hand trembling. In a sudden crush, he pulled her to him, pressing his face into her hair. They clung to each other for a long moment, until a rattling cough from behind her drew their attention to Major Gantry. He shot them an apologetic look as they pushed apart and scrambled to where he lay.